The Sickle Shaped Moon
by The Wallaby
Summary: Memory persists, even when the rest fails. OneShot, Damien/Pip. Written for Rowena DeVandal's 1000 Words or Less Challenge: October.


Have you ever experienced a memory that just cannot stop stealing its way back into your mind, even though you've tried your best to lock it up? Whether it was a lost love, a past guilt, or even something as trivial as a call you forgot to make, we've all had that feeling before. And you know it.

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**The Sickle-Shaped Moon**

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On that day it was night, and I waited.

For exactly what I cannot tell you, but the light outside my open window and the chilling night breeze might, for once, show you themselves. A man's memory can go back quite a long way, in ways that sometimes it is too painful or too beautiful, or even too bizarre for anyone else to know. And night is the best time when these shards of recollection find their way steadily into one's mind again.

I remember the hazy days of my family, whom I have not seen in years, and my dreadful schooling days in the town I left long ago—although I have nowhere left to go. I remember growing up there, far away from my native land, where I was lonely and bullied and without a soul in the world to care about me. It was up to me to make the best out of the situation, and even now I guess that I still have no idea how well that turned out. If it weren't for the unexpected intrusion of one into my boring, pathetic elementary life, maybe things would have turned out differently.

The breeze shifted a little, and I watched as several of the papers on my desk fluttered to the ground. Outside, the moon shone ever so brightly, the mellow silver splashing onto my skin. More than two decades have passed since I have seen him, but I can still remember the color of his skin, a silvery white sheen pale and beautiful as the moon.

It would be an understatement if I say that most people would find it strange that a boy who has been set on fire by another has no hard feelings for what that person has done. But still, I was used to being tortured as a kid—and anyways, from what I've seen, most kids are stuck in a semi-permanent state of shock until they're about twelve or thirteen. So I guess my already over-pressured consciousness just pretty much squirreled the event into my subconscious-ness and then just forgot about it…

Until today, when I opened my window and found the moon smiling down at me.

It is hard, so very hard, to forget anything. I find it practically impossible to accomplish, really, because eventually they just steal their way back again. Thoughts and ideas are lost inside the impeccable whiteness that makes up the mind most of the times, and then resurface gradually, tiny black spots that in time turn into words or paintings or photographs. And there he was, right in the middle of it all, staring at me in my head.

Bloody hell.

Life goes on, yes, but he's always been there somewhere deep inside of me, watching me, and I don't know what he's thinking still. I don't—I can't—remember anything else, anyone else for that matter, from that little Colorado town in which strange things happen every day. Ever since I'd moved two decades ago, to this little sleepy place in the middle of nowhere, I haven't been in contact with anyone—except in my mind.

I should stop, really. This isn't healthy at all. But his memory persists. I've read in a book somewhere that thinking so much is unhealthy for the mind, but is it really? As bizarre as it seems, I find pleasure in thinking about this… past event, be it good or bad.

Perchance one day we will meet again. Who knows? I will certainly have to die sometime, maybe tomorrow, maybe ten years later. It isn't so much of a what if this will happen as a when will this happen, but still, I'm pretty much unsure of what I would think if I do.

Ah, yes. It is such a strange, strange thing, memory is…

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He lay on the bed, wondering, his back aching again. The light outside illuminated his face, pale and weathered. He was still young, but the sight outside saw differently. There was ennui, exhaustion; frustration in his eyes, written all across his face, but life was still there, clinging on ever so hard. Life had not been easy on him, not at all. From a shy, bullied little boy in a tiny mountain town to an assistant cook in a sleepy Midwestern village…what kind of life was that? Once gone, ever gone—that was the life he knew.

But oh, there was so much more.

Time lulled, and the melodies of the night started in wake of the hazy moonlight.

His bedroom door creaked open, inch by inch, and he was shrouded only with the pale glow outside. The breeze subsided, and the stillness of it all was chilling. The figure outside moved. Somehow, he knew. And he wanted.

"I know you'd come."

Once upon a time there was nothing, and nothing was he. The wind grew stronger, frightening even, but there was one last thing to do, before he left.

"I remember you. Don't you remember me?"

He chuckled at himself inwardly. A frail, clumsy little boy; who would remember one such as he? In what way was he so great that he could be remembered? It was foolish, really, to even think about something such as this. Why would anyone want to remember him?

But Damien did.

_Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves, and Immortality._

The darkness advanced towards him, until the last shard of moonlight had diminished.

**End.**

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"Because I Could Not Stop For Death/The Chariot" © Emily Dickinson

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